Gaining STEM skills is as important for young children as learning to read, asserts a new report by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center and supported by the National Science Foundation. Libraries could play a critical role in this call for more preschool STEM learning opportunities.

Professionals from the library, education, and STEM fields gathered last week in Denver to participate in “Public Libraries & STEM,” the first conference of its kind to convene leaders from these arenas to examine current and future practices at the intersection of librarianship and science, technology, engineering, and math.

I recently spent a full day presenting workshops for the Nashville school librarians with my buddy Shannon Miller. I expected to fall in love with the city. But I fell in love with it for an unexpected reason. Nashville is a city that truly loves its libraries. And that love has a lot to do […]

Pam Sandlian Smith’s ongoing reinvention of library service at the Anythink Libraries in Colorado shows what leadership exercised in a spirit of wonder and playfulness can achieve. John Hunter’s World Peace Game takes playing to a new level for learning. We can all learn from both.

“The power of books is profound, but power does start in the children’s room. When we connect children with books…we are introducing them to the world,” says Pam Sandlian Smith, director of Colorado’s Anythink Libraries and opening keynote speaker at our first Public Library Leadership Think Tank on Friday. Among the day’s emerging themes: dreaming big, collaboration, innovation, creating community, and believing in the power of kids (and kids’ librarians) to change the world.

As a self-described nonreader, Matt de la Peña could never have imagined as a kid that books would play an important role in his life. But key encounters with libraries and, more importantly, librarians, who actively sought to engage him, helped open a new world to de la Peña. The author of novels for young adults, including Ball Don’t Lie and Mexican Whiteboy, de la Peña recounted his “path to books” in the closing keynote of SLJ’s Public Library Leadership Think Tank, held April 5 at the New York Public Library.

Who wouldn’t want to work with the two librarians on our cover? To me, their joyous, open faces welcome engagement. I want in on the action—in this case, the series of projects they pull off to bring more to the kids they each serve.